José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants, and the author of two collections of poems, including most recently, Promises of Gold. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. It was named a best book of the year in 2018 by The Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. In 2019, he was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Along with Felicia Rose Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he co-edited the poetry anthology The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT. In response to Olivarez’s latest collection, critic Luz Magdaleno Flores declared: “White people have Emily Dickinson, Mexicans have José Olivarez.” He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.